About Us

Est. 2015

Our mission is educate and inform the public about philanthropy.

We review of grant proposals. Twice a year, our expert evaluation committee thoroughly reviews hundreds of grant proposals submitted from all over the world. Submission deadlines are in March and September and every applicant receives a feedback report followed by a discussion. If you have written a grant proposal, we will review it and talk with you about it.

We also produce commentary about philanthropy, grant-making, the nonprofit sector and other related news. Our followers can read articles about current philanthropy trends inspired by our reviews, listen to our top-rated podcast Open Door Philanthropy which leaves the door open during long conversations with influential philanthropists and learn from our Symposiums which cover important philanthropy topics and are free to attend.

At Unfunded List we believe that great ideas deserve great feedback and that philanthropy can be inclusive by including more people.

Dave Moss

Founder

Dave Moss worked in various roles at innovative nonprofits like SEED Foundation, Atlas Corps, and PVBLIC Foundation where he gained expertise in all aspects of nonprofit management and philanthropy. As a fundraiser, he helped to raise hundreds of millions of dollars and as a grantmaker he has given away over a billion dollars and billions more in in-kind services. He founded Unfunded List and hosts the top-rated Open Door Philanthropy Podcast. He helped organize the first Next Gen Leadership Convenings at both the United Nations and the White House and in 2014 was instrumental in the creation of the “It’s On Us” campaign against rape and sexual violence. A participant in multiple philanthropy training programs and fellowships he has spoken about philanthropy at venues across the US and in Canada.

Dave is a proud Maine native and a graduate of Waterville High School and a member of Temple Beth Israel as well as Waterville Country Club. You can contact Dave at dave@unfundedlist.com

Margaret Chapman

Board Chair

Margaret Chapman has managed budgets from $50,000 to over $50 million annually including START International, Inc., the George Washington Cancer Institute, and various projects for the Pew Charitable Trusts. Most importantly, In 2017, she helped the Unfunded List successfully file for 501c3 status and serves as our director of finance and administration while providing crucial support to our evaluation committee. She is the Provost of Unfunded University and holds an MBA and MA both from George Washington University. She is currently on sabbatical and serving in a board role while she pursues a PhD in Philanthropy at Indiana University. You can contact Margaret at margaret@unfundedlist.com.

Board of Directors

Our Support Committees

Knowledge & Process

Governance & Advancement

History & Culture

In 2015, founder Dave Moss started the Unfunded List in order to harness the power of the honorable mention and to bring added attention, recognition and funding to ideas that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

We founded the Unfunded List with a simple mission: to provide feedback and recognition to unfunded grant proposals. What started as an informal effort to support social entrepreneurs with feedback has evolved into a vision of unlocking the value of an abundant and underutilized resource – well-conceived but unfunded proposals. There is no shortage of great ideas and potential solutions out there, but new programs need better support and the funding community needs a better way to identify and move new solutions forward.

Every submission receives detailed feedback on their proposal from our talented Evaluation Committee. Feedback could include introductions to other potential funders, suggested improvements to the proposal, potential partnerships, etc. and will be tailored to each individual application. Proposals from small nonprofits that have been submitted yet gone unfunded might also be published to the Unfunded List.

Founding Board of Directors

We are forever grateful to our founding board of directors who saw us through our formation and original program design process. All affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.

How does our feedback process work?

Unfunded change makers submit their best and most recent fundraising materials.

We assign their materials to a hand selected team of evaluators from our Evaluation Committee.

We compile the team’s feedback into one comprehensive report for each submission.

We share the feedback reports with each participating organization and offer a follow up consultation with our staff about the feedback they received.